Of Loyalties and Liberty
by EstelWolfe
Summary: The day after a tragedy, Dr. Stephen Maturin finds himself dealing with a pirate captain in a time and place that should, quite simply, be impossible. Crossover with Master and Commander, expanded form of 'Captain Jack'


Disclaimer:  If I owned them, would I be this cruel?  thinks  Don't answer that…

AN:  My grandma has terminal cancer and her last wish is to go to Alaska, so the entire family, myself included, is going with her for an indeterminate length of time.  I won't be able to update until we get back.  Sorry, guys.

AN2:  The premise for this is from my vignette 'Captain Jack', which some of you read.  Some of this you will recognize if you've read that, but don't worry.  It quickly skitters off into unknown territory, and will eventually resolve the question posed at the end of that.

AN3:  This is an M&C/PotC crossover, but we don't see our favorite pirates until next chapter.  Sorry again, guys.****

**Of Loyalties and Liberty**

**Part 1**

Stephen shivered as the last note of the Mozart duet thrummed through the wooden planking of the great cabin.  What was usually a buoyant and uplifting tune had been turned to something far more mysterious and beguiling by slight variations in the violin part, variations that he his own 'chello part had followed in an attempt to keep the music from falling apart.

Shaking his head to clear the last vestiges of the music from his ears, he wondered briefly if it wouldn't have been better to let the music self-destruct.  Mozart had certainly never envisioned his piece being played in the fashion they just had.

"You might simply have said that you would rather we play a different piece, Jack."

"Why, soul, I thought we played the Mozart quite well."

"True, if we were trying for a depth of darkness that would do a late Beethoven piece proud.  Is there something in particular troubling your mind, or did you just enjoy the exercise in musicianship?"

"Just a brief exercise in musicianship, given that we've nearly played the Correlli to death and I've not had an opportunity to transpose anything new, nor, to my knowledge, have you."  Jack smiled as he spoke, but his bright blue eyes were turned carefully away.

Stephen nearly groaned aloud.  "Please tell me you don't believe the superstitions that the foremast Jacks have been whispering about."

The captain of the _Surprise_ didn't even have the grace to be shamefaced as he answered.  "It's no superstition that vessels have been disappearing in these waters for years."

"They do the same off the Cape, but no one whispers of demons in those waters."  The suppressed grin on Aubrey's face didn't go unnoticed.  "All right, so mayhap they do, but even you must admit that in all likelihood those ships were lost to storms.  This is almost as ridiculous as their belief in whistling up the wind."

"Whistling worked well enough for me at Mauritius."

Apparently the look of horror on his face was quite comedic, and Stephen Maturin found himself watching his captain and dearest friend nearly asphyxiate on laughter.

"Stephen, surely in all these years at sea you've learned something of Fortune and her fickle nature.  All the men are trying to do is give her tricks a face."  All trace of humor abruptly swept itself from Aubrey's countenance.  "And to set your mind at ease, I worry more about the privateers in the waters than about the legends."

"Lucky Jack Aubrey, shy of battle?"  Stephen felt that his eyebrows must be somewhere near the crown of his head.  In all his years of knowing the man, never had Aubrey balked at any conflict.

"Not shy… wary.  Something about the reports doesn't set right with me.  I just don't want to be caught unprepared."

"Unprepared for what?"

"Anything."  Jack's shrug was non-committal, his face for once completely unreadable.  "Now, Stephen, would you like to do the Mozart again, or would you rather some Bach?"

XXXXXX

"Steady, Jack, please keep her steady…"  Maturin whispered the words with the same quiet reverence that he paid to his prayers—his illegal Catholic prayers, those few times he felt the need to say them.

It was rather foolish, really… there was no way Jack could know his need, nor anything he could possibly do at the height of a naval battle to comply with needs of his surgeon… but still…

"There."  Stephen breathed a sigh of relief as he cauterized the last artery that had been leaking his patient's life-blood onto the table, making a last cursory exam of the man's torso before quickly closing his incision.  Individual stitches would have to wait until the flood of wounded slowed.  He would not even have attempted surgery yet if it hadn't been imperative to the man's survival.

His assistants were quick to move the wounded sailor to a hastily strung hammock out of the way, leaving him free to peruse the remaining injured.  Many suffered from splinter-wounds, a few from musket shots… one man would likely lose the lower half of his left leg, having been struck a glancing blow by one of the enemy cannonballs…

A sudden shifting and the groaning of ship's timbers heralded at least a temporary respite from the rocking that could mean life and death to men under his hands.

"Sir?  What's 'at mean?"  Fear put a small quaver in the young voice.

Stephen smiled as best he could at the midshipman who had spoken, a lad who had just bought his first retinue of scars to show the ladies.  "We've boarded the privateer."

"Oh."  The simple response held both joy and jealousy, something that Stephen had witnessed many times in his patients and never been able to understand.

The surgeon could spare little time to talk, though, as a fresh wave of wounded descended to the cockpit, these suffering from blade wounds as well as from pistol and musket fire.  Stephen found his world condensing, time slowing and losing meaning as he balanced lives and limbs, helping those he could, comforting those he couldn't.

It was a routine he was far too familiar with.

"Dr. Maturin, sir…"  The carefully controlled terror in the seaman's voice instantly drew Stephen's full attention.

Blood… he noticed the blood first, even before he saw the seaman that kept Jack upright, the seaman who was also coated in blood.

Jack's blood.

There was no panic or terror touching his heart as he directed the seamen on how to arrange their unconscious captain in one of the hammocks, no undue concern as he did a quick examination of his captain's injuries.  He had seen Jack nearly bleed to death once before, when the stubborn fool swam a towline between his ships while spewing his lifeblood into the ocean, refusing helping hands until the _Polychrest_, already gutted by French carronades, sank to her final rest on the sea-bottom.

There was no heaviness in his heart as he applied quick compresses, enough to staunch the flow of blood while he finished working on the man already laid out on his operating table, a man whose chances grew slimmer by the minute.

No, the first whispers of panic touched his heart when he found blue eyes focusing on his face not fifteen minutes after they had initially closed, work-worn hands clutching at his.  Some patients wove in and out of consciousness, but Stephen had been through the routine of treating Jack enough times to know that when he collapsed it was the final statement.  There were no more reserves of strength left for him to draw on.

From whence, then, came the strength to power the ragged voice, a voice nearly drowned by the cries of the uninjured as they completed the acceptance of surrender and organized repairs?

"Stephen… soul…"

"Hush, joy.  All is well.  The _Surprise_ has taken the privateer and the merchants without much damage, and you will be fine."  The last part came automatically, the doctor to his patient.  Stephen knew that Jack's first concern, when not at home with Sophie and his children, was always the _Surprise_.

"No… Stephen… don't understand… too bad… not your fault…"

The slight glaze of fever already covering Jack's eyes and the rasping breaths that separated the words made it difficult for Stephen to tell if they were all even one thought.

"I understand perfectly, Jack."  Stephen wrapped his hand around Jack's, tightening his grip as much as he could, hoping to reassure him enough to let him rest peacefully.  "You watched me pull a ball from under my own ribs, Jack.  I promise you you'll be fine."

"Stephen…"  Something like pure desperation tinted Jack's voice, and Stephen attempted to tighten his grip still more.

"Have faith, Jack.  All will be well."

Whether it was some comfort he received from the words and the contact, or whether he had simply exhausted whatever spare reserve of strength he had found, Stephen wasn't certain, but slowly the light dimmed in those piercing blue eyes as Jack sank back into the unfeeling numbness of unconsciousness.

He would have expected the panic to bloom fully as the blood flowed freely from the edges of the table, unhampered by all his attempts to halt it.  He would have expected the growing weakness and frantic speed of the pulse that he monitored to start the fiery flow through his veins.

If nothing else, then the loss of that pulsing life should have brought the panic.

Instead there was a cool, detached professionalism to the entire affair, a detached professionalism that remained as the body of Captain Jack Aubrey was swiftly removed from his operating table. He could feel the troubled gaze of his assistants on him, practically hear their minds racing.

After all, it was common knowledge among the crew of the _Surprise_ that Dr. Stephen Maturin could save anyone if he truly set his mind to it, whether that involved breathing life into the dead or baring a man's brains to the world.

Even those somewhat frightened gazes couldn't break through the veneer of professionalism that surrounded Stephen as he worked his swift—and successful—way through the rest of the injured, a veneer of professionalism that extended inside his own mind, masking any pain from his own heart until all of his work was done.

It wasn't until he announced the death of Captain Jack Aubrey to First Lieutenant Thomas Pullings, giving full responsibility for both the _Surprise_ and her prize ships to the younger man, that he found the first hints of trembling in both his body and voice.

It wasn't until Pullings had left, his countenance having traveled through disbelief and grief to end at the frozen mask that Stephen Maturin had discarded, that panic came in swift waves, freezing breath and limb as memories flooded his mind, faster than thought could hold, each stamped indelibly with Jack's print.  Jack, who had befriended him when he had nothing… Jack, whose heartfelt devotion to king and country had given him something to believe in at the darkest portion of his life… Jack, who had first introduced him to the sea and saved him from it more times than was proper… Jack, who had taught him to swim… Jack, who had given him hope for humanity when all seemed beyond salvation…

It wasn't until the watch bell had struck a half-dozen times that he was able to fight his way through the panic to the darkest heart of his grief, a grief that seemed destined to tear him limb from limb, the sobs that he muffled with moderate success providing precious little outlet for the pain of having his spirit torn asunder.

XXXXXX

Stephen was abruptly thrown back into wakefulness when his hammock slammed against the wall of his quarters.  If the shifting and tossing of the ship hadn't been enough to inform him that they had run against rough weather, then the magnified smells and the drip of water would have left no doubt.

It was mere routine that allowed him to make his way to the cockpit, some even more primitive instinct that guided his steps toward the deck when he found no new patients awaiting his attention and the old ones well in hand.

The sky was a study in shades of gray and black as he emerged from below decks, not even having to blink in the muted light.  It was hesitant steps that inched him onto the quarterdeck, carefully away from the right side, the Captain's side, the side that Pullings now paced with the same avid intensity that Jack had used.  When Jack had paced the quarterdeck, Stephen had felt little need to heed the nautical tradition that held that portion sacrosanct, inviolate by any.  He knew this hesitancy filling his limbs was just a taste of the changes to come.

Pullings broke the invisible barrier himself, moving over to stand by Stephen, forcing a smile.  Studying him, Stephen was struck by how much the man seemed to have aged in the last few hours.

"You should go below, Doctor.  I've never seen the barometer as low as it is now, not even when we were in that big blow down by Mauritius."

That news brought Stephen's mind abruptly back to the present.  A storm larger than the hurricane that had toyed with their ship then was not something he had ever wished to see.  Jack had stood for hours in the wind and rain using every trick he knew to keep the ship afloat, and still many gave large credit for their survival to his luck rather than his skill.

"Will the _Surprise_ handle it?"

"She'll have to, won't she?"  There was a grim determination in Pullings' voice that put Stephen more at ease.

Whether it was exhaustion or a perverse sense of atonement that directed his actions, Stephen couldn't say, but instead of making his way back down below he stayed to watch as Pullings gave careful directions for the setting of the sails and the handling of the wheel.  He couldn't help but compare the young man before him to a young captain he had met many years ago in the Mediterranean, a young man who had at first annoyed and then completely captivated him, whose nature had undergone so many changes since then but whose essence had remained the same…

The sudden fury of the storm caught him completely off guard, the pitching of the deck throwing him to his knees before he could even begin to compensate for it.  Jack's evaluation of his seamanship—or rather, lack of seamanship—was suddenly much less amusing.

A mouthful of salt water was all the stimulus that was needed to urge Stephen back to his feet.  What had been a steady rain had become a shifting, lashing downpour, soaking through even his oilskin within a minute.  All light seemed to have disappeared, devoured by the seething mass of black clouds overhead.  Time became meaningless, only the struggle to reach the hatchway below retaining any significance… a hatchway that was being covered even as he watched.

Another pitch of the vessel knocked Stephen back to his knees, sending him sliding across the deck and into one of the lifelines that had been strung in preparation.  It brought him a small amount of consolation to see other men that he knew to be seasoned sailors doing the same.

He had heard descriptions of near-death experiences from his patients, tales of horror and superstition, starting with the moment when they knew they would die.  Often they described time as moving slower, memories and fears as becoming clearer.

There was nothing slow about the wave that swept across the deck of the _Surprise_, pulling his water-slicked hands from their death-grip on the line.  No memories swept across his mind, no fear paralyzed his limbs, though his grasping fingers seemed unable to find traction.

Instead, the last thing he wondered as he was swept overboard was whether it was his cry that filled his ears, or if others heard the keening that seemed in that instant to be united throughout wave, sea, and wind.


End file.
